Supporting children and families through

Early Development Groups

Gillian Bird and Amanda Wood
This article aims to give you a flavour of the work that goes on at our weekly groups, for
children aged 0-5. We have supplied descriptions of many of our activities with a rationale to
explain the area of development that they aim to promote. We hope that it will provide 'food
for thought' and inspire you to design activities of your own to support the early development
of your children with Down syndrome.
Bird G, Wood A. Supporting children and families through Early Development Groups. Down
Syndrome News and Update. 2003;3(3);74-81.
doi:10.3104/dsupdate.235

Early Development Groups (EDGs) for pre-school children with Down syndrome run every
Thursday at The Sarah Duffen Centre in Portsmouth. The sessions are currently attended by
36 families with children ranging in age from 13 months to 4 years and 4 months. There are
eight groups, loosely divided by chronological age, with infants aged 12 months to 2 years
attending one week and those aged 2 to 5, the next. We also welcome parents with babies
aged less than 12 months to observe the group sessions and join the informal sessions in the
playroom. Visiting professionals and those in training are also welcome by prior arrangement.
Many of our families are relatively local to the centre although some travel much further for
their fortnightly session.
The Early Development Groups aim to:

provide support and information to individual families

provide intervention programmes for those who attend, informed by the latest relevant
research on Down syndrome
enable Down Syndrome Education International to develop models of good practice
and to disseminate them to other practitioners through the charity's training
programme
collect detailed records which may be used, with parental consent, in future research
projects

This article provides an overview of the activities that take place during a typical session and
describes the areas of development that they promote. Many of the activities can be
incorporated into everyday family interactions or built into a 10-15 minute daily slot for
focused work with the child. We aim to model activities to the parents to give them
confidence in their own interaction and focused teaching at home. It should be noted at this
point that the EDGs should be seen as a supplement to the statutory and voluntary services
that should exist within the local community, e.g. Portage, speech and language therapy, child
development centre and nursery or pre-school placements. We hope that this article might
encourage people to establish their own groups in their local area.

The morning is divided into two parts; group sessions in the library or hall and informal play
and discussion in the playroom. The groups offer structured, pre-school, educational activities
to progress infants' speech, language, social, play and communication skills, reading, number
and motor skills. Each group offers activities that are relevant for the children's age and stage
of social, language and cognitive development. The direct work with the children lasts
between 20-35 minutes depending on age and this is followed by 15 minutes or so of
individual time with the parents to discuss progress and set targets, which can be followed up
in activities at home. The children sit around a small table, with their parents sitting behind
them. Parents are encouraged to assist their child as necessary, e.g. helping them to sign 'handover-hand', modelling the desired responses, prompting and supporting as appropriate. We
also encourage the parents to take responsibility for their children's behaviour although we try
to model appropriate strategies and responses.
During the informal play session, families have a chance to talk to each other and the staff
over a cup of tea or coffee. It's a great opportunity to exchange ideas with other parents and
gain individual advice regarding development and behaviour. Many parents have commented
on the emotional support derived from the friendships formed with staff, (some of whom also
have children with Down syndrome), and other parents who have shared similar experiences.
Each child has a confidential records folder where we keep information on their progress.
Parents complete DSE speech sound and vocabulary checklists and at the end of each session,
brief observations are recorded in each child's file. These records help us to set appropriate
targets for families to work on at home and allow us to differentiate activities and resources
according to each child's individual needs.
Each week the sessions are carefully planned to include activities to promote the different
aspects of development such as social development, play skills, speech and language and an
understanding of concepts such as number and colours. The variety of everyday objects, toys,
pictures, musical instruments and vocabulary used within the sessions have been chosen to
provide a positive multi-cultural experience and gender stereotypes are challenged in the toys,
colours, pictures and sentences used in interactive play, vocabulary and sentence work.
The activities are varied each week and suggested follow-up work at home loosely leads into
the activities planned for the next session. Whatever the variety or order of activities, the
important things to remember are that the children need lots of positive reinforcement and
praise; they need to experience errorless learning through modelling or prompting to achieve
the correct response. The language used in the sessions is grammatically correct but natural,
(not simplified), with some emphasis on the key words. The pace is relatively swift to
maintain interest and the emphasis is always on teaching rather than testing. Signing is used to
support the spoken word but signing is reduced for words that the children can both
understand and produce themselves. The next section reviews the individual activities and the
boxes include sample sessions for the different age groups.
Example activities: 13-20 months

Sample of the activities we might use for infants aged 13 months to 20 months, to last
approximately 20 minutes with only a couple of minutes or so for each activity.

Welcome and register

Speech sound cards: modelled to the children who may sign and say some of the
sounds
Feely bag of objects to practise first vocabulary, e.g. ball, fish, cup, teddy, car
Memory game; toy animals hidden behind back, make the noise and say "oh what
animal says 'quack quack'?"
Doll play: children are asked to "brush dolly's hair" or "put dolly to bed"
Roll the ball
Bells and maracas
First vocabulary picture cards; children take cards and turn them over one at a time
Verb cards: first verbs, e.g. sleeping, eating, drinking, waving, clapping
Nursery rhyme; choice of two, sing and sign

Example activities: 20-30 months

Sample of the activities we might use for infants aged 20 months to 30 months, to last
approximately 25 minutes with only a couple of minutes or so for each activity.

Welcome and register

Speech sound cards; anticipate that the children will join in with more of the sounds
Picture matching; between four and six picture cards
Word matching activity; between four and six single printed words
Reading activity at two word level, e.g. the cat/dog is sleeping/eating
First vocabulary picture cards, anticipated that children will join in more
Memory game; one or two objects hidden under cloth depending on developmental
level
Doll play: children are asked to "brush dolly's hair" and then "put dolly to bed"
Bells and maracas
Verb cards: verbs, e.g. running, dancing, crying
Bubbles; anticipated that children will try to blow
Counting to 10 on the number line and counting either eggs or teddies

Social development
Social development is considered to be a strength for children with Down syndrome, as they
tend to be very good at 'reading' non-verbal cues in people's faces, body language and tones of
voice. The children tend to have good social understanding and behaviour and this means that
they are particularly well suited to learning in a group setting such as the EDGs. The
following activities are used to develop social communication skills such as joint attention,
listening, turn taking, sharing and eye contact. We work hard to develop the children's
attention as it is a very important skill that underlies their ability to learn about the world.

The Register
The group leader starts by drawing the children's attention to the register. This has the word
'register' and a list of the children's names in big letters. The group leader starts by asking each
child to identify him/herself, saying something like, "Is Alice here?" Children are rewarded
with individual greetings for saying "yes" or "me", pointing to themselves, holding up a hand,
smiling or making eye contact depending on their age and individual needs. If someone is
away, the group leader uses the opportunity to model negatives and pronouns, e.g. "Is Alice

here? No, Alice is not here" or "she's not here". The "she" and "not" are emphasised and
signed. Completing a formal register in this way not only develops age appropriate behaviour
and prepares children for school, it also encourage turn taking, listening and learning from
others.
Roll the Ball: A fabric ball is rolled 'to and fro' between the members of the group. The group
leader might start by saying, "Look, it's a ball" and signing ball. She might encourage
everyone to say or sign ball and then roll it to one of the other children saying "now Alice has
the ball". Children should be encouraged to follow the ball and look at the person who has it.
This develops shared attention to the ball and to the people they are receiving it from and
rolling it to.

Maracas and Bells

This game introduces the instructions "stop" and "go". Children are encouraged to take either
maracas or bells from the basket. The game starts when the group leader says "go" and shakes
the bells or maraca. This models the desired behaviour to the children, who are praised for
joining in. The leader should smile while the bells and shakers are in motion. The next
command should be "stop", at which point the leader stops shaking the bells and sits quietly.
This game encourages the children to make choices, listen, participate, follow instructions and
develop shared attention. Children can be encouraged to sign 'more' if they would like to have
another go. With the three to four year old children, we often ask "who would like to be the
teacher now?" where the "who" is emphasised and signed. This child can be encouraged to
start and stop the others. This develops understanding of 'who' and also of taking the lead.

Nursery rhymes
Children are offered the choice of two nursery rhyme cards, which display a simple picture to
illustrate the rhyme. Parents may be asked to suggest two rhymes from the available selection,
that the child knows and enjoys. This encourages pointing and making choices; it does not
matter if the children do not understand the consequence of their actions at this point; they
will come to understand this over time. The leader starts the singing, encouraging the children
to join in. Often, they sing or sign the last word in each line or the key words in each line.
Children can be encouraged to sign or say "again" if they would like to hear the song again.

Free drawing, puzzles and pretend play

In the 20 minutes at the end of the group session, children are encouraged to play
independently while the parents discuss individual progress with the staff. Often the older
children will be given felt tips and paper or puzzles to share. Additional sets of pretend play
items could also be provided for the children to use during this time. Although, these activities
will develop fine motor skills, it is also a good opportunity for the children to engage with
play activities and with each other without an adult audience. It may help to develop intrinsic
motivation, sharing and spontaneous communication and speech.

Pretend play skills

The group leader has a basket of pretend play items including a doll, brush, cup and plate with
pretend food, flannel and bed cover. The leader will ask the child to "give dolly a drink" or

"put the dolly to bed", modelling the actions first. After the child has demonstrated his or her
understanding the leader encourages him or her to pass the equipment to the next child, by
saying "David, it's your turn now", signing the possessive 'your' (turn). This activity develops
children's comprehension of language at the two key-word level. The ability to link ideas in
pretend play will support the ability to link ideas in speech. The game also develops shared
attention, builds imaginary play skills and learning by watching others. Children can also be
asked "Who would like to give dolly a drink?" etc. When children are able to indicate that
they would like a turn, they are developing important social skills needed for inclusion in
games with other children.

Pretend play items

Speech and language
Our speech and language activities aim to develop speech motor skills, auditory
discrimination, comprehension and production of single words (vocabulary) and early
grammatical markers including amongst others 'ing' (present progressive tense), early
prepositions such as 'in', 'on' and 'under' and pronouns such as 'he' and 'she'. The content of the
activities, e.g. the targeted speech sounds, vocabulary and grammatical markers or function
words, take into account the wealth of information regarding the developmental sequence in
which these are typically acquired.[1, 2] The children's checklists (completed by their parents)
help us to differentiate the activities according to the children's stage of language
development. It is important to recognise that language comprehension is always more
advanced than expressive language and therefore it is important to include activities that
support comprehension and production separately. Also, the difference between levels of
comprehension and production for individual children can be large, some children may
understand large numbers of words but produce only a few words or signs. It is therefore
important to plan activities for comprehension that are at the correct level and not take limited
expressive language as an indicator of a child's overall speech and language skills and
knowledge.
For this reason, we target comprehension with activities at the single-word level for
vocabulary development and use simple grammatically correct sentences with two, three and
four information carrying words in our spoken language and in reading games. Similar
activities are used to encourage expressive language at a level that is appropriate for
individual children.

Blowing bubbles

The group leader blows a bubble and catches it on the bubble wand. The bubble is presented
to the first child who is asked to blow the bubble. The action is modelled first to show the
child what to do. This encourages the children to make an 'O' shape with their mouth, so
developing oral motor control. Children normally go through a developmental sequence of
popping the bubbles with their hands, then looking as though they are trying to eat the bubbles
(although they are probably just trying to imitate the correct mouth shape!) and finally
blowing the bubble. Children often find this a motivating interlude, which regains wandering
attention and can be used to give a break between tasks which make higher cognitive
demands. Again, the words or signs for 'more' and 'again' can be practised in order to request
another turn.

Speech sounds
We use the DSE sound cards in the groups. A selection of cards can be worked through fairly
swiftly, with the leader modelling the sounds and the children joining in where possible, either
signing or producing the sounds. The children also enjoy choosing individual foam letters
from a plastic wallet and jumping them back into the bag while making the appropriate sound,
e.g. "b, b, b, b". These activities promote auditory discrimination, speech sound production
and develop the phonological loop, that is, the part of short-term memory concerned with
processing verbal information. The second activity also develops knowledge of the sounds
that correspond to the different letters of the alphabet (grapheme/phoneme correspondence).

DSE sound cards

Sound cards activity to develop auditory discrimination,

speech sound production and verbal short-term memory
Vocabulary
Research conducted by the charity over the past 23 years has suggested that 'teaching reading
to teach talking' can be the single most effective strategy to improve speech and language in
children with Down syndrome. Research has shown that children are likely to learn from

simple reading activities when they have a receptive vocabulary (an understanding) of at least
50 words and they are able to picture match. One of the major aims of the EDGs for younger
children is to model and engage children in activities that will help them to build a receptive
vocabulary of 50 words. At this stage they will benefit from reading activities to develop their
speech and language skills. The EDGs for older children focus on the reading as a way to
develop children's receptive and expressive vocabulary, their understanding of grammatically
correct sentences and their ability to join words together in their expressive language. The use
of reading activities will be returned to below.

Picture matching activity to develop vocabulary

The following activities are used to develop vocabulary. The targeted vocabulary is linked to
the children's developmental checklists, which indicate the general order in which words are
acquired. The target vocabulary for younger children is drawn from the first developmental
checklist (first 120 words) and in the older groups, we might begin to use some vocabulary
from the second checklist (second 340 words). We include nouns and verbs so that the
children are able to progress to the next developmental level, understanding and producing
two words together, in two word utterances such as "Daddy sleep" or "dolly eat".
The words are said to the children and vocabulary development is supported by signing. The
signs are used as a bridge to the spoken word and help to 'show what you mean' as children
with Down syndrome do not learn words easily purely from spoken input. Evidence suggests
that children in sign-supported intervention programmes have bigger spoken vocabularies at
five years old.[3, 4, 5] We do not emphasise the use of signing to the same extent, however, if we
know that the child can say the word for him or herself. In the following descriptions, note
that the activities can be manipulated to encourage understanding and/or production,
depending on the individual child's speech and language needs.

Vocabulary game to develop comprehension and production of

nouns
Matching, selecting and naming games
We use matching, selecting and naming games to teach new vocabulary at the single-word
level. For example, children are shown four of the DSE language cards, 'picture-side up'.
They have to match a corresponding set of pictures to them. Once this skill is mastered, they
can be encouraged to select a particular picture to give to the group leader to 'put away' or
'post' in a post-box. This targets single-word comprehension. When the child 'posts' the
picture, the group leader might say "the ball's gone" or "the biscuit's gone". This paves the
way to two-word understanding and could be used as an extension activity that parents and
children can play at home with objects and pictures.

Word matching cards

Children who can match and select certain noun or verb pictures are demonstrating their
understanding and the next stage is to encourage production of the words. The following
activity can target single-word production but can be adapted to target comprehension. We use
a selection of the large ColorCards Nouns or ColorCards Verbs for group work, although our
DSE Language Cards are useful for home-use as they cover 54 words from the first
vocabulary checklist. The cards are handed out upside down and the children are asked to turn
their card over when it is their turn. The group leader asks each child to turn over his or her
card and asks, "what is it?" emphasising and signing "what". Some children may be able to
sign or say the word but often this activity is used to model correct responses to the children
and builds both their understanding of the words (receptive vocabulary) and naming skills
(expressive vocabulary). With the verb cards, the children can be encouraged to act out the
verb or to clap the rhythm of the two syllables, e.g. 'drink-ing', 'kick-ing', 'wav-ing', 'danc-ing'.
It is important to include a range of nouns or verbs that are suited to the receptive and
expressive needs of the children in the group, e.g. using simpler nouns and verbs in the
naming part of the game (production) and modelling more complex ones to develop their
receptive vocabulary.

Printed word matching activity to develop sight vocabulary

Once the children are able to match, select and sign or say some pictures, we move onto
matching single printed words. We use two sets of the DSE Language Cards 'word-side up' or
make our own cards with printed words on them. The children have to match corresponding
printed words. Again, once they are able to word-match, activities can involve word selection
and word naming (single-word reading). During teaching, we are careful to say the word
clearly at the same time as the child looks at the printed word. The child then takes the printed
word card and matches it to the same selection of four word cards.
The next stage is to match words to pictures. The words chosen may be from a particular
category, eg animals or food, although the category name itself would not be introduced until
the child has a much larger vocabulary. It is important that when you are encouraging the
child to read/say a printed word, you show them the printed word and then the picture or
object otherwise he or she will simply be telling you what the picture is and not telling you
what the word says. This rule also applies to reading activities at the sentence level.
Games involving real objects provide a change. Children have the opportunity to handle a
variety of toys and objects and engage with both the object and the activity. With the younger
children, we use a feely bag containing first animal toys such as pig, duck and cat or first
objects such as ball, keys and socks to promote comprehension and/or production of first
vocabulary. The children are asked to take one out and then name/sign what it is. If children
are not at the expressive level, the word is modelled and signed for them. At the end, the toys
are returned to the bag or basket while the leader says things like, "Thank you Alice, the duck
is in the bag" emphasising the noun 'duck' and modelling the preposition 'in'.

Activity to develop vocabulary comprehension and production

using real objects

At the moment, the children in our groups particularly enjoy an activity using toy vehicles.
They are asked to choose a toy from the basket, which they are allowed to play with on the
tabletop for a minute or so. The group leader then shows pictures of the toys and asks "Who
has got the bus/train/helicopter?" matching the real toys to the pictures. Selecting can be
incorporated by putting two toys in front of a child and asking them to put one of them in the
basket. The group leader models the names to the children; as each vehicle is named, the child
is asked to put the toy "in the basket". Some children can name the vehicles for themselves.
The final part of the game is to match the individual printed words with the same words (in
the same size and font) on an A4 sheet of card. The children are asked to "find the same",
where the leader signs 'same', saying "Well done they're the same" for a correct match.
Children will need to be encouraged to 'have a look round' when they are matching words or
pictures to ensure that they scan all four choices. These activities will help the child to build
the skills necessary for reading and help the children to develop a sight vocabulary.
During activities, we use attribute words like colour and size and for more advanced children
with particularly large receptive vocabularies, we may introduce attribute words such as
prickly, smooth, heavy, light, soft or hard. Children are encouraged to feel objects and the
words are modelled to them. We would not expect children to necessarily demonstrate their
understanding, this would simply be an exercise to expose them to more complex vocabulary
and prepare them for the type of activities they will experience at school.

Verb cards

Reading activity: matching pictures and simple sentences,

such as "the boy is drinking"
Grammar
Children with Down syndrome tend to develop their understanding of grammar and function
words like 'in' 'the' and 'is' from reading simple sentences and this is explained further below.
However, there are a number of speech and language activities targeting specific function
words like the pronouns 'he' and 'she' and the prepositions 'in', 'on' and 'under' which do not
involve reading printed words.

Prepositions
The feely bag game described above can also be adapted for the older children to teach
prepositions. The 'tidy up phase' now becomes the main focus of the teaching work. The
children would be asked to put the items 'in', 'on' or 'under' the bag with the leader modelling
sentences such as, "the duck is under the bag". This activity targets comprehension and would
be appropriate for the children aged around 2 years and older. The group leaders have also
played games involving the ColorCards Prepositions and small world play equipment
where children can be encouraged to put the boy 'in the cupboard', 'on the table' or 'under the
chair' and with large vehicles, for example placing the man or lady 'in', 'on' or 'under' the
tractor.

Pronouns
With children aged four and above, we might show one of the ColorCard Verbs pictures and
say "Look, he's drinking". This enables us to work on the children's understanding of 'he' and
'she'. At the comprehension level, children could be asked to select "he's drinking" from a
choice of two pictures, one of a man drinking and one of a lady cutting. At the production
level, some children might be able to join two or more signs or words together to tell the
leader what is happening in a certain picture. The same cards can also be used to practise
negatives, e.g. from a choice of two pictures the child has to select "the boy is not drinking"
where 'not' is emphasised and signed. This would only be appropriate for children with quite
advanced receptive language skills.

Reading
Children who understand 50 or more words, who are able to match pictures can begin reading
work at the sentence level, e.g. "The cat is sleeping". The child is encouraged to point at each
word as the parent and child read the sentence together. When carrying out a sentence reading
activity, you should present the sentence on its own, (without a picture) to encourage the child
to focus on the words and build a sight vocabulary. A picture to illustrate the sentence can be
introduced afterwards, and the child can be encouraged to put the two together.
Comprehension could be tested by giving the child two pictures to choose from. The activity
can be differentiated for a child with more advanced language development by using
sentences with more information carrying words such as "the cat is sleeping in the basket" or
presenting a larger variety of pictures to choose from. A child at an earlier stage of language
development could be encouraged to match single words to the correct sentence from a choice

of two, e.g. cat, sleeping. It is important to remember that children who are unable to read
independently or who have very limited speech production will still be benefiting from this
type of activity. They will be increasing their receptive vocabulary and will be benefiting from
the opportunity to learn from others in the group.

Verb cards to develop comprehension and production

Sentences with three information carrying words

Variety can be introduced by asking the children to match phrases with real objects, e.g. the
big cup, the small brick, the red ball. This game works at the two-word comprehension level
and is therefore suitable for children who can understand at least 50 words. The same basic
activity can be differentiated for children with more advanced language development, by
adding more information carrying words and more advanced vocabulary, e.g. the stripy ball.
To work on prepositions, you could encourage children to read the sentence with their parents
and then, as mentioned above, create the scene with small-world play equipment, e.g. "the
mouse is under/on the chair".
Personal books: We have made our own small reading books to give children to read at
home. The first one was about animals using single animal words, pictures and short phrases.
We will build up the complexity of the sentences as we work on different concepts: "Here's
the white dog", "The white dog is sleeping" etc. The older children are asked whether anyone
would like to read their book to the group.

Number skills

Number line: Children point to the numbers along the number line from 1 to 10, saying the
words where possible. The counting is supported by the group leader and parents and the pace
is swift so as not to put pressure on the child if they are unable to say the numbers. Some of
the older children, with more advanced speech and language and cognitive skills, use a
number line 1 to 20.

Counting with the number line to develop production of the

count-word sequence
Matching, selecting and naming the numerals: Children are given a set of numbers from 1
to 10 which have been cut up individually to match with the number line. Once they have
mastered matching, children can be asked to 'give' the group leader various different numbers
or name a number which is pointed to on the number line. This is a fairly advanced skill and
is only practised with the older children.

Counting real objects

Counting objects: The group leader asks each child "Would you like to count cars or eggs?"
The 'cars' are six small plastic cars and the 'eggs' are six sparkly egg-shaped shakers which the
children love. The child is encouraged to count the objects from one basket into another,
counting together with the leader at first. The concept of cardinality is reinforced by saying
"Well done, there are six eggs in the basket", with the emphasis on the six.

Numicon matching: DSNU has run various articles, (April 2002, February 2003, and May
2003) about Numicon, an approach to teaching number that encourages the use of visual and
tactile representation of the numbers to aid calculation. We introduce the Numicon shapes in
our groups for children aged between 2 and 3 years old. We lay the one, two, three and
four shapes out in the correct order and then encourage the children to lay out a second set of
shapes underneath or on top of the first set. Tactics such as modelling, prompting and handing
the child the correct shapes can be used to help the child and promote errorless learning.

Concepts
Colours: A simple game to introduce colour involves matching coloured circles with coloured
balloons on a picture. Reading activities can also work on matching the colour words and
introducing colour into the personal reading books. The colour words can easily be
emphasised and reinforced in many other games such as the 'bells and maracas' game
mentioned above. Recently, we have tried a game to teach clothing words using items of
clothing made from card and felt that are used to dress a cardboard cut out of a boy or girl. We
have also linked a reading activity to this to practise the colour words, e.g. 'the red jumper',
'the blue trousers'.

Colour matching activity

Shapes: The words for simple shapes, e.g. circle, square and triangle, can be introduced by
encouraging the child to match, select and name plastic shapes. Some of the children learn
more shape words such as hexagon, star and oblong.

Shape matching activity

Example activities: 30-42 months

This is a sample of the activities we might use for children aged approximately 30 months to
42 months, to last about 25-30 minutes.

Welcome and register

Speech sound cards; anticipate that the children will join in with more of the sounds
Doll play: equipment to include doll, cup, plate, spoon, flannel, brush
Word-to-word and word-to-object/picture activity: related to a specific topic, e.g. fruit,
vehicles, clothes etc. expectations should be individual for each child
Sentence reading: match sentence to picture, e.g. "the boy is reading"
Picture cards: introduce some harder nouns, individually turn cards over, name and/or
sign
Picture cards: introduce some harder verbs
Bubbles or bells and maracas to regain attention if starting to waiver
Colour matching activity; match coloured circles to balloons, match the words
underneath
Counting to 10 on the number line and counting either eggs or cars

Size: The words big and small can be introduced when playing simple reading and speech and
language games at the single and two-word level, e.g. matching the phrase 'big cup' to the
correct one from a choice of two toy cups, small and big.
Example activities: 3-4 years

Sample of the activities we might use for children aged approximately 3 years 6 months to 4
years 6 months, to last about 35 minutes.

Welcome and register

Speech sound cards; anticipate that the children will join in with more of the sounds,
jumping letters into the bag
Reading activities; group to look at personal books that have been given for homework
Matching sentences with two, three and four information-carrying words, choice of
pictures
Sentence including prepositions; construct the scene with small world play items, add
in some picture cards of more complex prepositions, e.g. over, next to, between
Picture cards to practise pronouns, e.g. he's drinking, she's waving and some harder
verbs
Picture cards: introduce harder nouns, individually turn cards over, name and/or sign
Attributes vocabulary, "give me" the heavy/light one, sparkly/stripy etc
Numicon matching shapes up to five on a baseboard
Counting to 10 on the number line and listen to teacher count to 20 on the 100 square
Counting activity; give me "four eggs"; errorless learning, present only the correct
number of eggs to count and give the correct numeral
Matching activity with plastic shapes or items of different sizes

Memory: A full range of activities to develop memory are described in the DSii module
Memory development for individuals with Down syndrome. We play 'hiding' games in the
groups. An object will be shown to the children, named, and then hidden under a cloth and the
children are asked to say or sign what it was. Another game, which might be more motivating,
uses objects which make a sound which you can hide. For example, the group leader would
show the children a toy duck, then hide it behind her back, and say "Quack, quack! Oh, what
says quack, quack?" A more complex game involves hiding two objects under a cloth and
removing one while the children shut their eyes. Then the group leader can show the children
the object which is left and ask them 'what' has gone. The 'what' should be emphasised and

signed. Another game, for older children uses a simple 'flip book'. Up to four vocabulary
picture cards can be inserted into the plastic pockets and then hidden behind the flaps. The
children are shown the pictures one at a time and have to try to remember them. The group
leader might show the children the picture of a cup and hide it under the flap and the children
have to sign/say cup. Then she might show the children a picture of an apple and hide it. Then
she would point to the flap with the cup behind it without saying anything (extra information
from talking might affect their memory) and wait for the children to say/sign cup. Then she
would point to the flap with apple behind it and see whether they can remember the second
item.

Motor skills
Children are developing their tactile and fine motor skills when they are handling objects,
turning over cards, lifting flaps, placing items 'in', 'on' or 'under' and completing inset puzzles.
Free scribbling/drawing with the felt tips helps to refine the child's grip, moving from the
palmar grasp (using whole hand) towards the tripod grip (using 2 fingers and thumb).

Food for thought ...

Hopefully, this article has provided some insight into the work that goes on in the Early
Development Groups and may inspire parents and professionals to work on similar projects in
their own regions. Finally, the activities do not necessarily need to be carried out in a group as
described in this article, they can also be played at home with other adults and/or brothers and
sisters modelling the activities for the child with Down syndrome.
If you are interested in starting a group in your own area, please contact us, as we would like
to offer you support and advice on a variety of issues associated with running groups besides
the activities themselves.